l^HE JOURNEY SOUTHWARD 505 



Next evening (Sunda3% June 7th) we went on again, 

 still southward, before the same northerly wind, and we 

 could sail well. We had hoped to be able to reach the 

 land before we again pitched our camp, but it was farther 

 than we had thought, and at last, when morning (Monday, 

 June 8th) was far advanced, we had to stop in the middle 

 of the ice in a furious storm. The numerous islands 

 among which we now were seemed more and more mys- 

 terious to us. I find in my journal for that day : "Are 

 continually discovering new islands or lands to the south. 

 There is one great land of snow beyond us in the west, 

 and it seems to extend southward a long way." This 

 snow land seemed to us extremely mysterious ; we had 

 not yet discovered a single dark patch upon it, only snow 

 and ice everywhere. We had no clear idea of its extent, 

 as we had only caught glimpses of it now and then when 

 the mist lifted a little. It seemed to be quite low, but we 

 thought that it must be of a wider extent than any of 

 the lands we had hitherto travelled along. To the east 

 we found island upon island, and sounds and fjords the 

 whole way along. We mapped it all as well as we could, 

 but this did not help us to find out where we were ; they 

 seemed to be only a crowd of small islands, and every 

 now and then a view of what we took to be the ocean to 

 the east opened up between them. 



The ice over which we were now travelling was 

 remarkably different from that which we had had farther 

 north, near our winter-hut ; it was considerably thinner, 



